As a young child I loved playing beside the brooks and rivers where our family camped and hiked in the forests of New York and Jersey. When I discovered Eliot Porter and Ansel Adams as a teenager, those streams became one of my favorite subjects, and they remain so to this day. Camping and hiking on a recent July weekend in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, my photographic goal was to free myself from the misty, long-exposure technique for shooting waterfalls that I am guilty of using far too often.

Drakes Brook on the side of Sandwich Dome was high from the heavy rains the night before. I followed the rocky trail toward the Fletcher Cascades hoping that fresh tracks in the muddy path would lead to some shots of a bull moose. Strong sunlight filtered through the canopy of birch, beech, striped maple, and white oak. Wide angle views of the forest with this kind of light would be harsh and contrasty — a lesson that took years for me to learn as a teenager when I shot with Kodachrome and ASA 200 Ektachrome. So instead of fighting the strong light, I chose to embrace it, stopping the cascades with fast shutter speeds.

No moose posed for me on this hike, but I did return home with some satisfying images.